


Svlad Cjelli

by artiebird



Category: Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency (TV 2016)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-24
Updated: 2018-03-24
Packaged: 2019-04-07 08:02:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 877
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14076486
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/artiebird/pseuds/artiebird
Summary: Todd makes a stupid decision, but sometimes you don't need to talk it out. You just gotta lay down the rules. Dirk's name is Dirk.





	Svlad Cjelli

**Author's Note:**

> if you are made uncomfortable/triggered by deadnaming perhaps don't read this. i'd imagine the name isn't dead to him, it's just not something he's cool with other people using. still, i don't want to make you uncomfortable!!
> 
> i wrote this in like an hour because i kept seeing this tumblr post: https://s-kaye-h.tumblr.com/post/170141234096 and it makes me think about what dirk thinks about his name (specifically in the 2016 version with all the stuff surrounding who calls him that name). i'm also goofing around a bit and don't have a beta or anything and basically pls don't expect much from me. but with that thank you for reading <3

Dirk gets too excited sometimes, and he’s too headstrong. He’s lovably such, but when he gets going, he’s going, and nothing much can stop him. This can be a problem.

“Dirk!”

Todd yelled for him. Dirk was missing information, was not ready for this, but he had longer legs than Todd, even if he ran like he was about to fall over.

“Dirk, wait!”

“Keep up, Todd!”

“No, Dirk!”

“I solved it!”

Todd panicked. He made a split-second decision—it had stopped him before. It was a bad choice, maybe, and maybe he wouldn’t have done it if he put in any critical thought, but he didn’t think. So, he did it.

“Svlad—”

In one way, one could say that it had worked. Dirk stopped in his tracks before the name finished coming out of Todd’s mouth. Todd opened his mouth to explain, but Dirk beat him to it.

“You don’t get to call me that.”

“You have to—oh. I’m—”

He was sorry. The critical thinking caught up to Todd, and so did the look on Dirk’s face. Far sterner than Dirk ever was, far closer to tears than Todd liked to see.

“That’s mine. It’s mine.”

“Shit. Sorry, Dirk, I just—”

“That’s _my_ name. Don’t call me that. It's not what I'm called anymore.”

Todd didn’t completely understand what that meant, but he bother fighting back. He felt like an asshole. A newly redeemed asshole fading back into asshollity. Dirk felt like he’d been stabbed.

“Sorry.”

Dirk nodded sternly, but after a moment he seemed to cool down. They just stood there, slightly too far apart for conversation, but close enough that after a shut down like that, it seemed to be in bad taste to move any closer. Dirk awkwardly rubbed his hands together and wouldn’t look at Todd’s face, while Todd stared past Dirk at nothing in particular. 

“Um. I had to tell you something. About the case. Before you took off.”

Todd spoke up after what felt like an hour. It was more likely thirty seconds, he admitted to himself. Dirk nodded a couple of times, using the momentum to lean into a bounce and reset himself; he turned his energy back on.

“Yes. Okay. Right.”

He takes a step closer to Todd and lets him talk.

**

Silence resonates for a moment while Dirk and Todd sit on the ground, coated in dust. The weasel sits happily in the middle of the room, underneath a blade from the helicopter, but the capybara is nowhere to be found.

Dirk cheers. Todd cheers in quick succession.

**

“I’m going to sleep here tonight.”

Dirk states this, matter-of-factly, to Todd upon arriving at his apartment. Todd looks at him for a moment without replying.

“Seeing as there is a metre sized hole in my wall. C’mon, Todd, you were there.”

“Right. Sure.”

Within a matter of minutes Dirk had made himself comfortable on the couch, television on and layering Todd’s spare blankets onto himself. Todd had gone to change clothes, and he could feel his chest the whole time, a tightness left there earlier but forgotten in the chaos. When he came back out, he hoped he wasn’t doing something incredibly awful when he brought it up.

“Hey, Dirk, I’m sorry about earlier. Can I ask, um… about the name thing. Y’know what, nevermind.”

“Oh, right. I’m sorry too.”

Todd straightened out. Dirk was not particularly one for apologies, no matter how guilty he felt. They both knew this, and it made both parties particularly uncomfortable about it. Dirk made a pensive expression, albeit exaggerated. Ruffled eyebrows, clenched teeth and all. Then, he decided to continue.

“Svlad Cjelli.”

Dirk paused, but Todd just stayed silent. He didn’t feel right prompting him, but he was curious.

“It’s Croatian. Or, no, the words are Croatian, sort of, but the name is Romanian. Sort of." Dirk said, scrunching his nose. It was as if he had a unique concept he was trying to get across that words were not quite suited to describe. "Anyways, no one can pronounce it here. Or in England, frankly. But my mother could, because that’s what she named me. She died, so thus ends people who knowing how to say it. I didn’t have friends, so thus ends people learning how to say it. Blackwing was the final straw, Svlad Cjelli died the day Project Icarus was born.”

“I’m sorry. I really… I don’t know. I needed your attention. It really wasn’t cool, I don’t know what I wanted.”

Dirk gave him a cheeky smile.

“That’s quite alright, Todd.”

“Can I ask why… Why Dirk Gently?”

“It just sounds like a detective, doesn’t it?”

It’s so easy for Dirk to go from distressingly sympathetic to absolutely, completely, and foolishly in his own world.

“Wh—?”

“Suave and classy, no? Sherlock Holmes, Nancy Drew, Hercule Poirot, Dirk Gently.”

Todd scoffs.

“Have you read any of those? I can’t imagine you holding a book.”

Dirk looks offended, but he’s back to his regular, annoying, trying-to-sound-like-he-knows-anything self. Todd comes around to sit next to him on the couch while Dirk spiels on about the many detective novels he’s read, and even takes a moment to critique their work, no less. Todd smiles, and Dirk smiles back.

Dirk Gently.

**Author's Note:**

> i have a lot of weird feelings about names idk i think about them a lot. fictional characters with aliases/new names always resonate with me in this weird way like i'm projecting some odd name based emotions onto them but idk. i don't think i'm like. super straying canon.
> 
> when i say cjelli is pronounced wrong it is working under the assumption that it is "tsyellee" opposed to "chellee" which is more common to hear. then again, if you google it, you'll find cjelli almost exclusively brings up douglas adams content. so if it is a real name out there somewhere, who am i to speak on what the pronunciation would be.
> 
> thanks so much for reading!!! <3 <3 <3 i love you and i hope to hear your thoughts. i'm still incredibly new to the concept of writing things, let alone fan things, so i'd love to hear what you like or don't like.


End file.
